LabVIEW Champions Directory
LabVIEW Champions Member Profile – Buddy Haun
Name:
Buddy Haun
Home:
Conifer, Colorado USA
Programming Languages:
LabVIEW
Certification:
Certified LabVIEW Architect, Certified Professional Instructor
Used LabVIEW Since:
Version 2.52
Applications Areas:
Automation and Test, Control Systems, Real-time/FPGA, Electrical Power, Teaching LabVIEW to Engineering Students at Colorado School of Mines
Selected projects using LabVIEW:
- Control System for Grid Forming Inverter used in off-grid power systems integrating wind, diesel, and battery backup
- Set Top box testing using OCR, image analysis, video frame grabbing, IR remote control, ZigBee remote control, and test script generation
- Nuclear Power Plant - monitored structure for cause of sonic anomaly during reheat cycle, measured the propagation of a vibration wavefront through the support structure of the reactor to determine cause of event.
- Telescope Control Systems - Tracking system motion control for observatory class telescopes. Including correction for atmospheric refraction, relativistic effects, and earth motion.
- Wind Turbine Monitoring - long term, high channel count, wind turbulence and meteorlogical data with millisecond accuracy GPS timestamping to determine effects of turbulence on large wind turbines.
- Power Monitoring - projects include award winning networked power monitoring for a major telecom data center, power monitoring studies at locations such as theaters, manufacturing lines, water/wastewater treatment plants, office buildings, analytical labs, UPS installations, turbine generators, aircraft power systems and others.
- Simian Time Motion Study - Synchronize primate EMG signals with high speed video for extended periods of time.
- Prototype Air Purifier for the International Space Station - Programmed control/data acquisition system for long-term testing of prototype air purifier.
- Amusement Park Ride Strain Tester - portable system designed to measure strain on amusement park rides for design and analysis.
- Many other interesting and unique projects.
Biography:
I graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with a degree in Petroleum Engineering. My career in petroleum lasted a whole year and a quarter before becoming unemployed in during a major downturn in the petroleum industry. My first introduction to LabVIEW was working for a consulting engineering firm doing power monitoring and the first project was a networked system using 14 networked PC’s performing power monitoring, breaker monitoring, alarms and a central database for logging data. The project started under LabVIEW 2.52. Since that time I have improved my programming skills and tried to stay on top of the new features added with each version which can be a challenge to say the least. I have worked on a very wide variety of projects with a number of different companies which has been very rewarding. As an ironic twist I was asked if I wanted to teach as an adjunct at the Colorado School of Mines because I knew LabVIEW and that was what they were using in their Multidisciplinary Engineering Labs. The person who hired me did not know that I was a Mines graduate when he asked. I have the pleasure of teaching LabVIEW to students and helping set new engineers on the right path.
I enjoy working on my old car and pickup, running, scuba diving, fishing, hunting and reading science fiction.
